decline incline

Tomorrow I leave Samara and the thought of it brings tears to my eyes. I´m already dreaming of my next visit. There is not an ounce of me that wants to leave this place.
Onward, I suppose. I cant imagine things could get much better than they are right now, but there´s no choice in the matter, so I go....
A week from today will be my first day on the job in Tambopata.
The days until then are going to be interesting, I´m sure, with lots of transport involved (a flight from San Jose to Miami, then Miami to Lima, then two days in Lima, and another flight from Lima to Puerto Maldonado, where I´ll spend one day, then my 7 hour boat ride out to the research station, then I´m home free...) Moments of intense transport are always the most stressful ones, but I´m sure I´ll make it.
I´ll write more once I´m in Lima. For now, I need to go soak up the last moments of my time here.
Love to you all.

a super good night

This Saturday night Alice bangs on my door asking me if I want to go to a fiesta at Hilarios families house. I asked where it was and they motioned that it was just up the road, so I said yeah, sure, and we all packed into two cars and went on our way. Just up the road ended up being waaaaayyy out in the hills of Guanacaste (the region of Costa Rica I'm staying in) down some really long, somewhat trecherous roads. Eventually we come to a hilltop and there's a single light on in the distance on a neighboring hill and Hilario tells me that that's where we're going. We arrived eventually to the house of Hilarios uncle and aunt who are dairy cow farmers. His uncle cares for the cows and his aunt makes cheese with the milk to sell in the local market. During the final length of the drive we're passing groups of people making their way by foot down the dark, dark road, on their way to the fiesta. Hilario would shout out a greeting or joke or whatever to each group, as he knew everyone and was related to most of the people we were passing. He later explained to me that his family has been living on this particular hill in this particular village for many many generations. We eventually arrived at a big old barn that was all lit up, where all the people were conviening. Inside the barn there were little tables with chairs lining the outside of the room and the middle was left empty for dancing. There was a guy in one of the corners playing salsa and merengue music (very loudly). The day before this, a guy who had been a student at the same school I'm now attending arrived for a visit to Samara and was staying with Alice and Hilario (they introduced him as their 'hijo', their son) and so I was one of two gringos (white people) at the party. There were probably 100 people crowded into the barn, and spilling out the back doors into a big field. We sat and socialized and drank beer and eventually some of the women made a huge feast for everyone (none of which I was able to try for the fact that pork was a main ingredient in everything) and it was just a really really good time. Brandon (the other gringo) and I were wondering when the dancing would start and continued to wonder this basically all night, as it never did start. However, Brandon is big on dancing and insisted that we go out to the field behind the barn and he would show me the basic steps for a few salsa dances, and he also showed me one country western dance that applied well to salsa music (he's from Texas and is a classic southern gentleman, very christian, very sweet, but at the same time, very foreign to me). He somehow convinced me to go back to the barn with him and dance the country western dance in the middle of the barn, with everyone watching! Anyhow, somehow I go for it, and at the end everyone applauded! It felt really really good to just seize the moment and do something completely out of my nature. Beyond good, really. A little later we went back to the field and befriended a big pack of kids who were playing there. They were very intreagued by us and thought we were loads of fun and they ended up following us everywhere, like the pied piper. We all danced around in a circle and seriously just had a blast.
Eventually Hilario told us it was time to go so we took the long ride back to Samara and stopped at a bar in town that was having a salsa night, this time with lots of dancing people. Brandon insisted that I try out the new moves he had taught me and so again I just went for it and had a ball doing so.
At the end of the night I fell asleep just feeling so lucky to get to see places like this and meet great people and do things like go to parties way out in the countryside of Costa Rica... To get glimpses of life in places so forign to my own New England world. It's just wonderful.
The night was just really inspiring and elating and I thought I should share it with you all. :-)

beach life

Well, it´s been two weeks now that I´ve been in Samara, which is kindof astonishing to me, because it hardly feels like it´s been that long. Perhaps it´s having a routine that makes time go by so quickly... I´m absolutely delighted with my trip so far, and really, things couldn´t get too much better. The daily grind includes waking up to roosters and monkeys outside, eating a fresh fruit breakfast, walking to school on the beach, taking my classes and spending the rest of the day on the beach, reading my book or studying Spanish. I´ve made some really nice friends here in town, which makes things all that much better. Just this afternoon one friend with a car drove a few of us to a neighboring town for a change of scene and we spent the afternoon at a restaurant with an amazing bar-terrace, where we drank cold beer and admired the view and the breeze. Again, not too hard to take. At all.
My new tico "family" couldn´t really be sweeter, either. Alice is a jovial old woman who cooks amazing food and trys her hardest to help me understand her jokes. Some mornings I´ll wake up to blasting salsa music and she´s cooking away in the kitchen, singing and dancing all the while. Hilario is Alices husband and is also really sweet. He makes a real effort at meals to hold conversations, which are sometimes painfully slow, but he still sticks with me, and trys to teach me things I might not know, like names of animals I´ve never seen and suchlike. In addition to these two, there´s a constant flow of family and friends who come and go all day. They definetly have a very close family and value family above just about everything else. They like to sit around and joke and tell stories, and although I only get about 60% of what they´re saying, it´s just a nice glimpse into a lifestyle very different from my own. They´re becoming more and more comfortable around me and I already know I´ll be really sad to say goodbye not only to them but to this whole town, when the time comes. One of my best friends here is an 84 year old man named Elmer, who lives down here half the year and spends the rest in British Columbia. He´s originally from Hungary and has traveled all over the world and is a wealth of wonderful stories, which he willingly and enthusiastically recounts to any listening ear. I´ve spent quite a few nights sitting with him in the rocking chairs on the porch, listening to his tales and just enjoying the good company. It´s indeed amazing the characters you meet when you´re new to a place.
School itself is really great, and I definetly am understanding a lot more now than I was when I arrived, which was my objective, and therefore, I consider the whole trip thus far to be a success. My classmates this week were more into the whole thing (last week I had some really immature and unfocused girls who were basically just here for a tan), which really helps, because the enthusiasm just sortof brings the whole class up.
All in all, things are just about perfect, and although this is on the short side, I cant think of much else to say besides that it´s not too shabby livng in paradise. Not too shabby at all.

back in the saddle

It´s abslolutely amazing how quickly this day has come since my last post in Europe. The two months spent at home were wonderful and leaving was dificult because it felt as though I had just returned and had hardly had time enough to settle in before leaving again.
The first two days of this trip have been a bit stressful but at last I have arrived at my destination, Playa Samara, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The troubles began pretty much instantly, as there were electrical problems with the plane at JFK, delaying take off for more than an hour, and making everyone on the plane a bit nervous, considering they had to bring electricians onboard two times. The flight was smooth enough once we were up in the air, but because of the initial delay I ended up missing my connecting flight in Houston and therefore missing the people at the airport who were supposed to be picking me up in San Jose. In Houston I was literally the last person admitted onto the plane, I had standby status and at the last minute a few people who had been delayed in Minnisota were not able to make it and so I got to take one of their places, thank god, considering the alternative was to take a flight at 6pm, getting me to San Jose at about 10. Upon arrival in Costa Rica, I was absolutely astonished and elated to see that my luggage had somehow arrived with me. I was not so suprised, however, to see that whoever was going to pick me up was no longer there. I must have looked like a lost puppy because I had one after another taxi driver trying to get me into their cars, but since I had only a name of the town I was going to and the name of the person I was staying with along with a phone number, I had no idea what to do. One semi-English-speaking driver kindly used his cell phone to call the woman I was staying with and got directions and eventually got me to my destination, thank god. Maria, my host for the night, welcomed me warmly and tried her hardest to converse with me despite the fact that she spoke not a word of English. The next day I was expecting to take a bus from the school in Heridia (the suburban town outside of San Jose where I was staying), as I had recieved an email from them saying one was leaving at 10am. However, Maria called ahead to confirm the bus schedule and they said that there was no bus and that I would have to find my own way to Samara. Luckily, Maria and her husband Jorge were willing to take me into San Jose to the public bus stop and helped me with buying my ticket and figuring out where to go. Thank god for the kindness of strangers. The bus ride took about 5 hours, costing $7. At first I was happy to see that I had the front seat, with a great view out the front window. Then I realized the guy sitting next to me was retarded and decidedly had a crush on me. oi vey. He kept asking me all kinds of questions to which I would reply that I didn´t understand because I dont speak much Spanish. He kept on going with his questions and I eventually had no choice but to ignore him. He had a plastic ice-cream cone toy that had a button which, when pressed, played a familiar synthisizer song from the 80´s. He must have pressed the button 200 times before the batteries finally died. Thank god. Toward the second half of the trip he started to get bored and somewhat destructive and started pulling the metal trim from around the window off and throwing the peices out the window. He also grabbed my arm a few times and I had to just push him away and say no and he would be good for another 20 minutes or so. Interesting trip. I was happy to arrive in Samara and be away from him. I called my new host family and they came to pick me up and bring me to their house. The family is huge, with lots of kids and even more mangy looking dogs around. They have chickens that just sortof wander about and roost in the trees and make a lot of noise, and a few roosters that started cock'a'doodle'doodling around 5am. My room is very simple but so far bug-free, which is pleasing. I have my own bathroom with a cold-water shower, and the people are nice. Last night was the birthday of Alices daughter (Alice is my host "mother") and the festivities were incredibly loud, with music and lots of talking and dancing. It was a fun glimpse into tico life. Alice runs a soda out of her kitchen (sodas are privately run mini-restaurants) and the food so far is decent. This morning my alarm clock was first the roosters and then an hour or so later, the howler monkeys, who are extremely loud, and who seem to be extremely close to the ceiling of my room. I had delicious fresh papaya and pineapple for breakfast and went for a long walk on the beach. I have yet to get more than my feet in the water, but I´m looking forward to a swim. The sun is beyond powerful and my winter white skin is feeling vulnerable, but it´s all good. I´m looking forward to my first day of classes tomorrow morning, and meeting my fellow students, who will hopefully be a good bunch. I´ll write more when there´s more to write. Love to you all!